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On September 14-15, the Huffington Ecumenical Institute (HEI) at Hellenic College Holy Cross, in partnership with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, hosted an interdisciplinary colloquium in recognition of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s unprecedented thirty-five-year tenure as Archbishop of Constantinople.
The colloquium featured expert panel presentations on the ecclesial, social, and pastoral dimensions of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s ministry as “First Among Equals” shepherding the global Orthodox Church.
Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, Executive Director of HEI, opened the colloquium by expressing his personal admiration for the Ecumenical Patriarch. As Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne, Fr. Chryssavgis has worked closely with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew over the past four decades: editing three volumes of his collected speeches, recording his remarkable life’s story, and serving as his advisor on environmental issues.
From his enthronement in 1991, His All-Holiness “did not procrastinate in assessing the past and pointing the way of the future,” Fr. Chryssavgis said. “He landed with his feet running…deeply rooted in the present and forward looking to the Kingdom.” Few spiritual leaders, Fr. Chryssavgis observed, have so ably executed the “consistent fulfillment of an aspiration articulated from the outset of their tenure.”
While offering his archiepiscopal blessing for the colloquium, His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros characterized Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with the reverence of a spiritual son for his “father in Christ.” This bond of “filial devotion,” stretching back more than twenty-five years, has been the “ground and inspiration” of His Eminence’s ministry as a deacon, priest, hierarch, and exarch of the Ecumenical Throne. Whereas other religious leaders may seek “secular power, ephemeral glory, and financial gain,” His All-Holiness’s tenure has been marked by “fidelity, canonicity, and morality.”
The first panel of presenters, chaired by Rev. Dr. Philip Zymaris, Professor of Liturgics at Hellenic College Holy Cross, focused on the Ecumenical Patriarch’s approach to Church leadership. His Grace Bishop Maxim, Eparch of Western America of the Serbian Orthodox Church, spoke first on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s chairmanship of the Holy and Great Council (2016). When repeatedly faced by moments of “paralysis” during the Council, the Ecumenical Patriarch proposed person-oriented solutions rooted in “procedures, patience, and persuasion.” For the Ecumenical Patriarch, “unity is not uniformity imposed from above” but communion forged in the fire of love for the other.
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